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Making watery friends

I think we may have found the most wonderful winding, watery bunch of friends you could ever wish for. Before we had even left the marina on the first day we were being offered help from other boaters and the theme has continued every day of our trip so far.

Take Brian and Jane of The Bank Hall Dry Dock for example. We had Golden Girl taken out of the water at their facility so that the surveyor could have a good look at her bottom and by pure coincidence we were moored next to their big Dutch Barge, Cloudy Bay on our first night. Before we went to bed Brian had offered to take me into Burnley to buy coal the next day and the pair of them insisted on meeting us at our first set of locks to give us a hand and show us how it’s done. We were bowled over by such kindness and generosity but what we didn’t realise at the time was that this was just typical of how folks with the common interest of boats and canals seem to treat each other.

I’m sure we will meet Mr. or Mrs. Grumpy sooner or later but if our first week on the water is anything to go by I doubt it will be any time soon. So far we have been given endless invaluable advice, been invited to a Macmillan Coffee morning at the Lower Park Marina and been rescued by a lovely couple called Chris and Steph who found us stuck on the wrong side of the canal on a particularly windy day. I would never have believed that fifteen tons of steel could be blown around like a balloon once it is floating on water but I assure you it can and although the wind has no problem tossing the boat about I didn’t have the same success with my barge pole. But that’s another story.

The fabulous Chris and Steph

We are particularly grateful to existing friends Neil and Hilary who have been holding our hands throughout both our boat buying and boat sailing journeys. Neil has a wealth of boating experience and he is also a bit of a wizard when it comes to tying things up in knots. You can see his craft of rope tying and fender making at his Facebook page here. Neil also kindly offered to turn the boat around in the centre of Skipton where it’s very busy and there isn’t a lot of space. He presumably didn’t want to be associated with anybody responsible for mass sinkings and sensibly took the tiller from me for the process. He left me feeling in awe of his boat handling skills and acutely aware of my total lack of them.

Skipton: Not the easiest place to spin a boat around.

It took us nearly a week to get from Burnley to Skipton on the boat but when we got there it was like a social whirl. In three days we had met up with Neil and Hilary on their boat, had a visit from Vicky and Woolly who live in the town and by the magic of a common contact who lives in Canada but is presently in Laos we were put in touch with boaters Ben and Liz who have been travelling the country on their narrow boat Blue Otter. Thanks for the introduction Rhian and thanks to Ben and Liz for a great night in the Narrow Boat Inn. Where else?

Having a great night with Liz and Ben in the Narrow Boat Inn.

We already have a wealth of memories and stories to tell but to date my favourite revolves around a pub meal at The Castle in Skipton. First of all it took visits to four pubs in order to find one serving food on a Sunday and then having placed our order and settled down with a drink we were hesitantly informed by the young and obviously inexperienced waiter that they didn’t have any chips. It had been busy apparently and they had run out. A complex re-selection involving the lunch time sandwich menu and we resolved ourselves to wait again. The waiter came back after twenty minutes and said that they didn’t have any sausages! More choices were made and eventually we got mostly what we had ordered and to be fair it was very nice. After a bit of discussion it was agreed that they wouldn’t charge us for our second round of drinks in recognition of what had been a shambles of a dining experience. When the bill came we were delighted to find that they had completely miscalculated it in our favour in addition to the missing drinks round. Presumably they had lost their calculator or run out of batteries for it or something. I wouldn’t go as far as to say don’t go to The Castle if you are in Skipton but maybe don’t go on a Sunday evening after a busy weekend.

All part of the rich tapestry that life on the canals is turning out to be I suppose and long may it continue.

P.S. Since writing this I have to mention Caroline that we met in Gargrave. I asked her if we could borrow her hose adaptor because we didn’t have one and in typical fashion she just gave it to us, insisting that she had a spare. A week later, passing her on her mooring above Barrowford locks she offered to help us through the locks. Boaters will know what a difference this makes. Yet another lovely gesture that adds to this experience.

3 thoughts on “Making watery friends”

I’m so delighted to hear that you are embarking (literally) on your new life with golden Girl! Long may you enjoy her! We’re moving house too, but only twenty miles north to Dornoch in Sutherland. And granddaughter Sophie is now one , cute as anything – and shaping up to be a right little monkey! Very best wishes Janet W